The social-networking landscape is changing as users of the service continue to grow in average age. Citing a comScore Media Metrix analysis of MySpace, Online Media Daily said they found that only 30 percent of current users are under the age of 25.
The study also revealed that users under the age of 18 comprise only 12 percent of total MySpace participants. This is a huge drop from last year where that age group made up 25% of users.
Last year, among the ages of 35-45, 32 percent of MySpace users made up that grouping, this year it has grown to 41 percent.
Jack Flanagan, executive vice president for comScore said, "MySpace.com has the broadest appeal across age ranges, Facebook.com has created a niche among the college crowd, Friendster.com attracts a higher percentage of adults, and Xanga.com is most popular among younger teens."
Now that more options are available and the message is going mainstream, there will probably be a continuous shift of people until things get worked out.
Like we talked about in a recent post concerning online retail experiences, consumers are simply gravitating toward that which they do in their regular, everyday lives. A big part of that is being social. It was only a matter of time before it emerged into the online world.
Another interesting thing about this from the point of view of News Corp. (NWS) , is that young people said they would start to abandon Myspace if it began to become populated with a lot of older users. This looks like it has already happened. The other side of the coin is that this might be great news for News Corp., as older viewers tend to be much more loyal to a business. This could work out in their favor.
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